Synopsis

Stranded in 1955, Marty McFly receives written word from his friend, Doctor Emmett Brown, as to where can be found the DeLorean time machine. However, an unfortunate discovery prompts Marty to go to his friend's aid. Using the time machine, Marty travels to the old west where his friend has run afoul of a gang of thugs and has fallen in love with a local schoolteacher. Using the technology from the time, Marty and Emmett devise one last chance to send the two of them back to the future.

Stranded in 1955, Marty McFly receives written word from his friend, Doctor Emmett Brown, as to where can be found the DeLorean time machine. However, an unfortunate discovery prompts Marty to go to his friend's aid. Using the time machine, Marty travels to the old west where his friend has run afoul of a gang of thugs and has fallen in love with a local schoolteacher. Using the technology from the time, Marty and Emmett devise one last chance to send the two of them back to the future.

Tech specs

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by Michael DeZubiria 10 / 10

Just as incredible as the first two, Back To The Future III provides two hours of great fun.

Doc Brown and Marty McFly are back for another time travel adventure, and
once again their exploits are great to watch. The film is well-written and
directed, and all of the actors involved delivered spectacular performances
once again. There could not have been a sharper contrast between the last
Back To The Future and this one (we go from the neon colored future of
flying cars and 3D movies to the old dirty west with its overflowing
spittoons and gunfighting), yet the story holds together strongly and keeps
the attention of the audience from start to finish.

The old west was portrayed beautifully, although maybe a bit crudely and
stereotypically, and the way that the town of Hill Valley was transformed
for all three films is one of the biggest highlights of the series as a
whole. In Back To The Future III, the challenges that face Doc and Marty are
ingenius, and a solution to their problems is extremely difficult to think
of, which makes it that much more fun to watch the film.

Back To The Future III is an excellent way to have ended the trilogy, which
as a whole is among the best trilogies ever made. What other group of movies
follows the same characters through their adventures which take place in
three different centuries? Clearly, Back To The Future III deserves a lot of
respect, as do the previous two films. They are all a huge amount of fun to
watch, and the films can be enjoyed by people of all ages, which is a
quality that few films possess.If you haven't seen these films, go out and
get them, and if you have seen them, you may want to go out and watch them
again.

Reviewed by clydestuff 8 / 10

Marty, Doc, Zemeckis, And Gale pay homage to the Old West

Having set a new standard in time travel films with Back To The Future and
Back To The Future Part II, it was with eager anticipation that I looked
forward to seeing if Robert Zemeckis could bring his trilogy to a satisfying
conclusion. To conclude any trilogy in a successful manner some of the key
ingredients you need are: 1. do something in your wrap up you haven't done
before 2. keep the main characters true to what they have been previously 3.
tie up all the loose threads and 4. give us a satisfying
ending.

For this third outing in the series, Zemeckis takes us where we have yet to
tread, that being 1885 Hill Valley. With Marty trapped once again in the
year 1955, he enlists the 1955 Doc Brown to help him return home. As we
know by now, things are never that simple when it comes to Marty and Doc.
Marty has no magic ruby slippers to click together three times and say,
"There's no place like home." It seems Doc ended up in the Old West, but
hid the DeLorean in a cave for Marty to find some 70 years later so he may
return home back to 1985 and destroy the time machine. After discovering
that Doc met with some misfortune shortly after arriving in 1885 Hill
Valley, Marty decides to travel back in time to rescue him.

While BTTFIII does not have the break neck frantic pace of Part II, it is a
good film on its own. For the first time, Zemeckis slows things down a bit,
making this third film straightforward, yet just as delightful in a lot of
ways as the other films. The first thing he does is throw us a little
change up. Zemeckis and Gale decide to center the complications of this
third film around Doc Brown by having him fall unexpectedly in love with a
school teacher by the name of Clara(Mary Steenburgen). In essence, Doc
loses his head over a woman and loses his scientific reasoning in the
process. It is left up to Marty to become the voice of reason when Doc
begins to let his emotions rule his reactions. Yet, Marty seems as a amused
as we are by the whole thing. This is one romance that could easily have
been the downfall of this film, but thanks to the performances of
Steenburgen and Christopher Lloyd, together they develop a chemistry that
makes it all work and work to perfection. So by having the majority of the
film take place in the old west, then introducing something to the plot we
didn't expect, Zemeckis takes care of the first point I mentioned above.

There's also the matter of Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen. The meanest, grimiest,
filthiest, most ruthless outlaw to ever inhabit Hill Valley. If you liked
Thomas F. Wilson's portrayals of Biff, you'll be amazed at his rambunctious
portrayal of Mad Dog. He even somehow manages to top his villainous
portrayals in the first two films which is not an easy task. So yes, all
the characters from the first two films are here in some form or another,
and though Doc Brown may be in love, he is still the Doc. This solidly
takes care of my second point about keeping the characters true to what they
have been before.

Zemeckis and Gale have been absolute geniuses in writing these films. In
each film they have taken little pieces from the previous films and make
them essential to what's happening. For instance, if you've seen the second
part there is a short scene that is extremely relevant to what goes on in
the finale. When originally viewing it in Part II, I'm sure you never gave
it a second thought. When the pay off comes in this film, you can't help
but chuckle and say, oh I see. As for my third point about tying up loose
ends, they do that and tie up some things we didn't even know were loose
ends.

In Part II, it was necessary for several of the actors to play different
roles. This one is no different. Besides being Marty Mcfly, Fox also
portrays his ancestor Shamus Mcfly, who is Irish, and again Fox shows his
versatility as Lea Thompson does as his wife Maggie. Of course James Tolkan
is back as Strickland and theres a couple of good jokes about his character
that will surprise you...well at least one of them will surprise you the
other will just leave you laughing. As if all this wasn't good enough,
Zemeckis also gives us several old western character actors, Dub Taylor, Pat
Buttram, and Harry Carey Jr. Another great touch thrown in just for the fun
of it.

In reviewing the fist two parts of the trilogy, I failed to mention Alan
Silvestri's terrific score. All three films owe a great deal of their
success to it, and the fact that he was able to keep the same theme, yet do
variations on it that perfectly fitted each film deserves as much credit as
all the others responsible for making this film received.

So what about point 4, a satisfying ending? Of course, you'll have to see
the film to find out for yourself. I can only say that when Part 3 was over
I felt a certain amount of sadness that the trilogy had ended. Even now
when I watch the three films, I wish there had been a fourth, and a fifth.
This was not because the ending of the third film left me unsatisfied in
anyway, quite the contrary in fact. It was because I would miss not only
the films themselves, but most of all the rich detail and characterizations
brought to life for us by a wonderful cast, director, writers and the rest
of the crew responsible for enabling us to enjoy one of the most memorable
series of films ever.
And when you live in my memory forever, you get my grade. For Back To The
Future Part III it's an A+. As for the trilogy, there is no grade high
enough, no rating high enough, for me to give it the award it so richly
deserves.

Reviewed by DarthBill 5 / 10

"There's a man who can't hold his liquor."

Picking up where #2 left off, Marty is stuck in 1955 again and has to explain to the 1955 Doc why he's back and uses a letter Doc sends him from 1885 to explain what happened. After fixing up the time machine (hidden in a from 1885 cave), they find out that Doc is murdered in the past by Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen (played by Thomas F. Wilson) "over a matter of $80 dollars." So Marty decides to go back and rescue Doc before the murder can occur, but he is bedeviled by a rip in the fuel line - meaning they have to find another way to get the time machine to hit 88 miles per hour - and Doc falling in love with school teacher Clara Clayton (Mary Steenburgen). Along the way, he gets advice both from Doc and his 1885 ancestor Seamus McFly (also played by Michael J. Fox) that he should really learn to control his temper.

Fox and Lloyd are fun to watch as always, and I give my hat off to the studio for hiring Mary Steenburgen as Doc's love interest and not some super model type; it's more fitting of who Doc is. Wilson's Biff Tannen officially became a traditional "villain" in #2 with him murdering George McFly, and now Wilson plays an even bigger villain in Buford Tannen, whom he makes both funny and menacing.

Ironically, Wilson is said to be a very nice man in real life. Leah Thompson makes the most of a thankless dual role as both Lorraine McFly and Marty's great, great grandmother Maggie McFly, and James Tolkan plays his Principal character's soft spoken law man ancestor (killed in a deleted scene by Buford Tannen; "Remember son... discipline.")

It should be noted that originally there were no sequels planned with the first movie; that bit with Doc taking Marty and Jennifer to the future to help their kids was just another gag. But the film was such a hit that the studio couldn't NOT do sequels, so this one and part 2 were filmed back to back, which is becoming more of a craze these days.

Although on the surface it's a lighthearted comedy about time travel, it's also about what it means to be a man. The first film defined being a man through violently standing up to your tormentors, while this film and #2 go with the theme that being a man also means you have to reign yourself in when people start annoying you. Marty' willingness to fight back was his strength in the first film but here it is his flaw, as people in both 2015, 1955 and 1885 continually get his goat. The message of self-control is bluntly stated when Doc says to Marty "You can' t keep going off the handle every time someone calls you a name, that's why you get into that accident in the future!" (referring of course to the car accident mentioned in part 2). It is not until Marty realizes his error when he's about to meet Buford in the gun fight that he achieves this ideal and, much to Seamus's glee, says of Buford and the opinions surrounding him "He's an asshole! I don't care what Tannen says, and I don't care what anyone else says either!" Because of this, he is able to avoid said accident.

Also loaded with gags, references to other great westerns ("My name is Clint Eastwood.") and Doc's response to being asked if his hijacking the train is ahold up: "It's a science experiment!"